HYDERABAD: The only relief at the forever-jammed Khairatabad-Somajiguda circle in the city is chateau de marody which Hyderabadis proudly call the Administrative Staff College of India. Started on December 21, 1954, the college celebrates its 60th birthday with aplomb today, for it is the only management college that came into existence, much before the IIMs and ISBs.
On the occasion of its milestone year, K Padmanabhaiah, current chairman of Court of Governors of Administrative Staff College of India, former Home Secretary of India, spoke about his vision for the future.
“We are keen to begin an entrepreneurial management course for family businesses. A gender-related programme where we equip women to handle managerial positions is also on the cards. We may conduct the classes in our campus or in their premises.”
Giving an insight into the history of the college, he recalls, “The college started in 1954 under the guidance of TT Krishnamachari, the then Finance Minister of India and support from the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.”
“The concept of staff college has been borrowed from Great Britian. In the British empire, various functionaries were trained in various levels, especially the military and defence personnel. Later, it extended to the higher civil services. Most countries like Canada, New Zealand and Austraila had staff colleges. Management training for working managers became functional in 1956. Until 2000, every IAS officer, including myself, had come here at least once,” he shares with utmost joy and pride.
He reminisces, “It has had its glorious days. There were six chairmen before me.” Padmanabhaiah then spoke about the list of chairmen preceding him. “The Director generals used to be called principal,” he recalls.
“Now, each of these functionaries like IPS, IAS, IT, excise and so on have their own training college. All public sector firms used to send their managers here for management programmes. Now, even they have their own management colleges. They have grown in size after privatisation. Then came the Indian Institute of Management (IIM’s). Later on private management schools came up which was followed by specialised schools like ICFAI. We don’t have induction training unlike MBA, which is a two-year training program,” he adds.
“The courses, spanning from three days to three weeks, are structured to meet the requirements of people. We have courses like finance for non-finance managers, and Human Resource for non-HR managers,” he says citing an example of how people can learn subjects outside their purview. The college has strategic planning and every year they conduct about 100 courses to train 4,000 people. After the training comes research and consultancy. “For instance, take the Swacch Bharat initiative. The course will examine how the programme has evolved, who is responsible for it, how is it being implemented and monitored. Consultancy and training are the two main departments,” he adds.
“Until 2014-15, we were incurring losses of up to `5 crore. This year, for the first time, we have had 350 officers from Bangladesh in the posts of senior deputy secretaries and joint secretaries in 7-10 day programmes. We also get people from Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan and other SAARC countries and are signing MOUs with many countries. Last year for the first time in four years, we have made a profit,” he says.
So how does the college handle competition? “We create niche programmes which are not available elsewhere.”
He also mentioned that he is looking for sponsors who can come forward to paint the college, which may cost up to `1 crore.